Defence Ministers meetings

GENERAL

1. Meetings of the North Atlantic Council (NAC) at the level of Defence Ministers will be held at NATO Headquarters on Wednesday 26th and Thursday 27th October 2016. All information about these meetings will be made available via the NATO website. This media advisory marks the opening of the online accreditation website (see below).
2. The meetings will be chaired by the NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg.

PROGRAMME AND POOLS

3. The definitive programme will be handed to media representatives upon accreditation. It will include restricted access by selected visual media to the opening of Council meetings and the official portrait, unrestricted access to press conferences and information about the retransmission of media events to the press working area and TV/Radio booths. Information about individual ministers’ media programmes should be sought directly from the national Delegation(s) concerned. A list of NATO Delegation press officers is available from the Press & Media Section and upon accreditation.
4. Press conferences are in principle media events open to all accredited media. The opening remarks of the various NATO meetings as well as the Secretary General’s press conference(s) will be broadcast live on the internal closed-circuit television system and can be viewed in the press working area as well as online. Audiovisual media representatives who wish to cover the opening remarks from inside the Council room may make a written request for a pool card to the e-mail address given at the end of this advisory. No confirmation will be sent. Pool cards for restricted-access events will be given to a small number of videographers and photographers drawn from among those who submit an accreditation request on time; these will be distributed at the Press Office Front desk from 12:00 on 26 October 2016 and from 08:00 a.m. on 27 October 2016.
5. When a media representative accepts a NATO pool position it is with the strict understanding, in accordance with international practice, that the act of accepting the accreditation to be in a NATO pool implies explicit and unconditional agreement by that media representative that he/she will share immediately and upon request with other media accredited to the NATO event all information collected, and/or all material produced, while in that pool. It also implies explicit agreement that the media representative will share the material with no impediment from their own news organization, at no charge to other journalists and with no restriction on the use of the material for legitimate news purposes.
6. Media representatives can only accept the pool accreditation if they have the explicit backing of their employer to all of the conditions on providing pool material as the basis of accepting the pool position.
7. In turn, media organisations seeking pool photo materials should first contact the Wire service photo agency of which they are a member or client. Media representatives and the news organizations that employ them who accept any material from a pool accept it with the explicit and strict understanding that it must be identified as pool material any time it is used, that it can be used only for legitimate news purposes and that the receiving party has no right to sell pool material or otherwise profit from it.
8. The NATO photographers and videographers will provide video clips and photos of all the media events for posting to the NATO website; photos can be downloaded fromwww.nato.int and the B-roll and press conference videos can be downloaded live via satellite or from the NATO TV & Radio Unit (see the contact details below). After each event, the videos are available for free download from NATOChannel.